


FLA · ME0

by sujurean



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Cock Piercing, Fluff, Its my first time posting anything to ao3, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Oneshot, Oral Sex, Piercings, Plot, Semi-Public Sex, Tongue Piercings, apadravya, van sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 18:13:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16877799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sujurean/pseuds/sujurean
Summary: Roxas's life is as monotonous and dull as can be—until he meets a mysterious drop-dead gorgeous redhead at a bar. Roxas tries to learn more about the man of his dreams until one night Axel explains everything—but it throws up one important question.





	FLA · ME0

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a short story assignment for my writing class because my professor said fanfiction is free game 🤷🏽. The point was to write something that you wanted to read... and I wanted to read something like this *looks at rating* 👀
> 
> This is also my first ever fanfictiion I've finished in _eons_ and posted here.
> 
> Shout out to Cream_Pudding, AutumnPlants, Karscogs, Rissuu and Kunoichi21 for looking over this and providing enough input for this to get a 93%/A!!
> 
> ALSO TY to Cream_Pudding for helping me write a better summary!
> 
> Y'all are the real MVP!

The day Roxas met Axel, it was at a bar. It had been a long day of managing customer complaints, emailing the same information over and over again to interns that couldn’t read a manual, and getting micromanaged by a supervisor over folder colors of all things. To say Roxas needed a few drinks was an understatement. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to walk to the bar and it was a Friday—thank fucking _God_ it was a Friday.

For the majority of his time at the bar, he was mindlessly playing a game on his phone with his left hand, and in his right, he had a lager. Unfortunately, he was on a losing streak which acted as a multiplier to his present sour mood. Though typically perceived as harmless from his short stature and boyish appearance, he had a 2-foot perimeter bubble because of the deep-set scowl marring his face. It was as if everyone at the bar knew not to fuck with him, lest they end up with their faces caved in. 

Yet, Axel was completely unaffected by Roxas’s radius of ire. He reached across Roxas, blocked his phone with his left arm to snatch the bowl of mixed nuts beside him, and noisily munched right next to Roxas’s ear. 

Roxas was about to snap at him when he looked up and—he became mute. His anger melted away like a sea salt ice cream bar out in the beaming hot sun and he felt completely captured by the malachite hue in the other man’s eyes. His mind fogged and his tongue felt as heavy as lead while time slowed down. His breath caught in his throat as he spent several moments taking in the two teardrop tattoos under the man’s eyes, his brilliant, bright red, wild hair, his lopsided grin, the gold jewelry that dotted his nose and threaded his ears, and the rings on his fingers that snapped in his face, pulling him out of his trance.

All of the details of that night beyond that instance were fuzzy to Roxas. He knew that they talked and that Roxas found Axel completely charming, no matter what stupid jokes the taller man threw in his direction. He knew that it didn’t take much for them to make out in a secluded corner of the bar and that Roxas couldn’t stop running his tongue over the gold stud of Axel’s tongue piercing. He knew they definitely strolled back to Roxas’s one-bedroom apartment, unable to keep their hands off of each other. He knew he couldn’t stop playing with the rest of Axel’s piercings, of which there were a multitude all over the man’s body, until he was finally bent over the bed and they fucked like the world was about to end. 

He definitely knew that when he woke up, it was just himself in his bed without any clear indication that he got laid last night. He would have almost counted the experience as a wet dream, if not for the apology letter placed in the shallow dent where Roxas’s spooning arms were outstretched. The note had Axel’s full name, number, and the excuse that he promised a friend he’d be in SoCal by today and was running behind. He promised he would be back in a few days and that Roxas should definitely text him to remind him.

And so, Roxas texted him that day, indicating how much of a jerk Axel was for not saying the note’s message to his face. He didn’t get a response during the day, so he sent another text in the evening, letting Axel know he wasn’t mad anymore; he even went so far as to ask about his day. Another day passed where Axel didn’t respond, so Roxas texted him again with a selfie, asking if Axel even remembered him. 

Roxas was certain that the man completely forgot him by the third day until he received a knock on his front door. When Roxas swung it open, a bouquet of daisies and a box of saltwater taffy was thrust into his face and Axel, wearing a wide grin, popped his head on top of the gifts. 

“Of course I remember,” was the first thing that came out of his mouth. 

Before Axel could say anything else, Roxas pulled him down by the fabric of his black shirt and kissed the breath out of him. He subsequently punched him in the shoulder and made Axel swear to him to never pull shit like that again.

Unfortunately, even after his promise, Axel continued his habit of disappearing the next day. However, he did respond to Roxas’s texts… eventually—the quickest being the next day, the slowest being three days. After several punches to the shoulder, Axel compromised that he’d always answer Roxas if he called him. So Roxas called him—several times at first—to which Axel answered him on speaker with the distant sound of driving in the background. The calls often lasted hours on end and were only hung up whenever Axel needed food or a bathroom break. 

From all the long calls they had, Roxas slowly started to piece together the bigger picture of Axel’s life. Aside from any interests they shared, Axel would always prattle on about the job he was driving to, which wildly varied from call to call. Some of the things Roxas heard were that Axel managed a band, which included driving party buses and creating band merchandising and advertisements. Axel was also a freelance graphic designer—an Instagram model photographer—a printmaker and co-owned a studio—he was a carpenter and a general maker of things. Coupled with the tall stories Roxas heard out of Axel’s mouth, it was only natural for Roxas to not believe him. All the stories were too bizarre and wild. Out of curiosity, Roxas tried to find proof to any of these claims, but no matter how many “Axel Flynn” Google searches he made, he couldn’t find anything useful. 

He _did_ find Axel’s Facebook though and quickly friended him—but once he scrolled through Axel’s timeline, he found it was mostly filled with shared videos from _The Dodo_. Axel barely interacted with anyone on the website, despite having over one thousand friends. This lack of concrete information on Axel just added to the man’s elusiveness, like he was secretly some government operative that had _no choice_ but to lie about himself. This all should have raised red flags for Roxas, but Axel just seemed so earnest in the way he talked about himself, even if he was all over the place. And each time Axel was at his doorstep and smiled down at him like he just saw the sun after a week’s worth of rain, it threw all of Roxas’s rational thoughts out the window. It made him crave the man so much and cherish each and every call they shared because when he closed his eyes and listened to the smooth timber in his voice, he could see that smile again.

Eventually, the frequency of their calls dwindled down because Roxas knew he would always see Axel at his doorstep again. He found the less they talked in between rendezvous, the less time it took Axel to show up again. Whenever he abstained from contacting Axel, the man’s greeting involved pinning him against the nearest surface and fucking him until they both came several times. Roxas also noted that the less frequent their phone calls were, the more times he woke up to Axel either in his arms or Axel’s lanky body cocooned around him.

Axel came over more frequently, he stayed for longer, and bits and pieces of Axel’s things began to migrate into Roxas’s apartment. It wasn’t until Roxas was greeted to breakfast in bed one day that Axel asked him to be his boyfriend, to which Roxas teased him, claiming that they had been boyfriends for months at that point (but secretly, he had been holding out until Axel said something). They officiated it over Facebook and the status gathered over 300 of Axel’s friends reacting to the status and congratulating them in the comments. It had been the most of Axel’s friends Roxas had seen directly interact with his boyfriend all at once.

Even with the new phase in their relationship, Axel continued forgetting to let Roxas know when he had to be somewhere the next day and never answered his texts, though he still answered his phone calls. Even with being reliably there at Roxas’s doorstep—or where Roxas worked, ate, or drank—Axel only ever met up with him rather than the other way around. Over time, Roxas grew even more curious and asked him if they could spend time over at Axel’s place to which Axel would always insist otherwise. He’d come out with oddities like “Trust me, it’s better I _don’t_ wake you up from making eggs” or “I’d hog all the hot water and steam up the bedroom in the morning.” This made Roxas assume that Axel lived in a shitty cheap studio apartment—which made sense considering all the time Axel spent traveling. 

Even if Roxas enjoyed Axel’s sporadic whimsical nature, and every moment he spent with him was like a good dream after a tiring night, this dance of not knowing anything about his boyfriend grew old. It had been a night after work, where Axel showed up to his favorite bar and ordered them a round of drinks when Roxas decided to confront his boyfriend. 

While nursing the ale in his right hand and holding Axel’s hand with his left, he looked up at his boyfriend’s vivid gemstone eyes and asked him, “Axel, where do you actually live?”

Axel averted his gaze and hummed in thought before sighing and downing the rest of his beer. He looked back at Roxas, chewing at his lower lip. “You really wanna know?”

Roxas nodded enthusiastically, “Yes! Ax, I wanna see it.” After a few moments of silence, he offered, “Look, if it’s some gross bachelor pad, that’s fine with me too. I just wanna know.”

Axel laughed and shook his head before setting the empty bottle on the table and holding Roxas’s hand with both of his. “Okay... so.... Since you really wanna know, I actually don’t _really_ live anywhere...” he squeezed Roxas’s hand and smiled. “I live in a van.”

When Roxas heard that, he burst into laughter, plucked his hand out of Axel’s grasp and playfully shoved his boyfriend. There was _no way_ prim, well-manicured, and clean Axel lived in a van, as if he was homeless. Didn’t Axel have a nice smartphone too? It made the least sense to him out of everything he knew about Axel. “C’mon Ax, really, you can tell me,” he tried again, looking back up and sipping his ale.

“No, I’m serious, babe,” Axel awkwardly laughed, rubbing Roxas’s arm and trailing his long fingers to grasp Roxas’s hand again. “I really do live in a van.”

“Prove it,” he challenged with a smirk, scanning Axel’s eyes for any signs of a bluff.

Axel sighed and shook his head, “Alright, I suppose it’s only fair.” He wove his fingers in between Roxas’s knuckles and plucked the bottle away from the other hand, gulping down the remainder to the sound of Roxas’s protest. They then swiftly left the bar and quickly headed to the parking garage next door.

Roxas’s prior certainty of Axel’s dwellings diminished with every passing elevator floor, bringing them to the very top. The entire floor was deserted, save for a single maroon Mercedes Sprinter Van parked dead center in view of the elevator. The van glistened in the lamplight surrounding it. Roxas’s astonishment grew as they approached. A sense of strange surrealism washed through him as he took in the detailed hand-painted white flames fluttering across the side. Roxas separated their clasped hands and took a moment to ambulate around, examining every detail from the flames on the side and the backdoors, to the alien head sticker, a yellow diamond sticker that read, ‘Baby up in this bitch’, and an ‘Oprah 2020’ bumper sticker next to a license plate that read ‘FLA · ME0.’ 

Axel touched Roxas’s shoulder and handed him the key fob for Roxas to do the honors. 

Roxas felt the ridges of the buttons and the jagged edge of the key. He brought the object to his face and looked over to Axel, who gave him the smallest of smiles.

“Go ahead,” he nudged and pointed to the big button.

Roxas pressed it and the van clicked open. He froze in place as Axel opened up the driver’s side and pressed a button that activated the back passenger sliding door. 

What the door revealed, instead of the usual van interior of several rows of seats, was a completely gutted out and hollow vehicle furnished like a miniature apartment. A small cabinet counter with an inlaid gas stove sat up against the side entrance, the far wall facing out to the sliding door had another door with a chrome polished handle, and beside it was a large porcelain sink propped up on a wooden vanity. 

Axel walked back over to his boyfriend and held his hand, guiding him into the vehicle toward the back of the van, which housed a large bed nestled between the two surrounding walls lined up with cabinets. Axel turned on the LED ceiling lights with a switch. “Welcome to my home,” he sang, gesturing enthusiastically to his place. 

Roxas plopped onto the large bed positioned right up to the back doors. His wide-with-surprise sapphire eyes scanned around every aspect of the van’s interior which Axel pointed to and explained with enthusiasm. 

There were counters, vanities, and cabinets all made from repurposed wood from church pews which Axel had sanded and finished with Sedona Red. He spoke of the mini shower room and how it had taken forever to seal. He looked so proud of himself as he explained that he had figured out how to hook the shower up to the same water supply as the large porcelain sink. Roxas was shown the hidden storage underneath the two seating areas up against the sides of the van and listened to Axel explain how it took forever to find the right fabric (that ultimately being a dark-black satin-finish) to upholster everything. He heard how long it took Axel to make every single thing, from the nailing of the drywall to the hardwood floor installation, to the planning, and especially all the decorating.

With every detail Axel told him, Roxas quickly believed that—even if _nothing_ else was real—his boyfriend was _indeed_ a maker of things.

His stiff body bounced up with the displacement of weight on the mattress from his boyfriend falling down next to him. He turned his head over to Axel who was smiling broadly at him.

“So whaddya think, babe?” Axel hummed, grabbing Roxas’s arm and pulling him down and against his body. He brought Roxas’s hand next to his lips and idly kissed the knuckles underneath.

“I’m not sure...” Roxas trailed off, taking a while to digest the onslaught of new information. They had been together for a year, yet somehow _this_ was the most concrete but simultaneously also the most bizarre moment of their shared time together. 

“Take your time, we have all night,” Axel chuckled, quickly wrapping his arms and legs around Roxas’s small frame.

After a while of silence, Roxas found his voice again and turned his head back to his boyfriend. “So… all the traveling and all those jobs you have...”

“When you give up living at one place, you run into a lot of opportunities,” Axel answered, trailing a hand up to Roxas’s scalp and gently scratching the nape of his boyfriend’s neck.

“So, you really do _all_ of those things?” Roxas mused softly, relaxing into Axel’s touch, but then tensing with a sudden realization, “But wait, for money—don’t you need, like, an address?” he threw a confused look up at Axel.

“It’s why I co-own a printmaking studio,” Axel chuckled and leaned forward, planting a kiss on Roxas’s furrowed forehead. “It gives me an address for my bills and bank. Technically, the studio is an apartment.” He kissed Roxas’s cheek, “—and because there’s only one other person ever there, it’s like I’m working from _home._ ”

“Who’s the other person that’s there?”

“Demyx, he takes care of the bills and the business, and gets 75%. I pay the accountant and she takes care of both of our taxes. I’m only there, at most, 3 months in total, so the math works out.” Axel kissed Roxas’s other cheek and then his ear. “You remember him, right? Packed goddamn five cases for one gig because he can’t stick to one instrument with strings. Like someone is gonna request that _one_ sitar song we have...”

Roxas looked back up to the ceiling of the van, the little trinkets that dangled from the wood paneling catching the light next to the recessed LED lights. “I remember you talking to me about Demyx before but—um... honestly I didn’t think he was real.”

Axel’s voice caught in a breathy laugh, “Why?”

“Because... none of this feels real,” Roxas muttered.

Axel pulled back from Roxas a little to look at him. “Whaddya mean?”

“Like…. Honestly, if you didn’t have a Facebook—and, like, if nobody interacted with that post about us being boyfriends—I would’ve thought I made you up in my head.”

Axel looked a bit perplexed as he tilted his head slightly but then chuckled and kissed Roxas’s hand, lazily trailing his pecks up Roxas’s arm, “I assure you, I am _very_ real.”

In a soft and steady voice, free from all emotion, Roxas asked, “Then what guarantee do I have that I won’t wake up tomorrow with you gone?”

Axel stopped kissing him, blinked, and sat up straight to meet his boyfriend’s gaze while his lips pressed into a thin line. A wary tension crept into Axel’s tone of voice as he said, “Rox, what’s this all about?”

Roxas averted his gaze and laughed. “Oh come on, you mean to tell me that I’m really dating someone as hot as _you_ —but he lives in a van that has a mini apartment stuffed inside of it?”

“I don’t know if I should feel insulted or flattered.” 

Roxas looked back at Axel when he heard no jest in the man’s voice. Axel’s lips were pressed together in a stern expression. Roxas looked away, his eyes scanning around the van. Even as he sat next to his gorgeous boyfriend, in the gorgeously remodeled van, this whole experience _still_ didn’t feel concrete to him. “So, I’m not dreaming,” Roxas pondered out loud, as he’d always done, but this time looked back up at Axel for an answer.

Axel scanned Roxas’s eyes but sat in silence, to Roxas’s surprise. He would have expected to hear some one-liner come out of Axel’s mouth, or a joke, or some assurance that Axel was real which would inevitably lead to them locking lips and end up strewn across the bed. Instead, Axel asked him, “Do you really think I’m not real?”

Roxas’s face tinged red, but instead of shamefully denying it, he nodded.

Axel stared at his boyfriend, rubbing his thinned lips in thought. Finally, after several moments, he sighed and dropped his head back to the mattress, looking up at the wood paneling. 

Both of them laid in silence, breathing in the night air that quickly flooded the van interior from the open door. The dull noise of car honks and boisterous drunks drifted on the breeze filling the silence between them.

Roxas wasn’t sure what to make of the silence or this whole situation, but his worries had no chance to take root in his head because Axel abruptly propped himself up and said with almost-jarring enthusiasm, “Oh right! I almost forgot the best part of living in a van.” He slid down from the bed, hopped out of the van, and slammed the door shut behind himself. 

Roxas blinked in confusion and sat up, turning his head as he followed the muted footsteps outside all the way to the back of the van. He saw the doors at the back pop open and the headboard slide down with Axel holding it by a handle.

Axel placed the headboard in a ledge against the bed and grinned back up at Roxas, “I didn’t get to show you the view!” He then pulled himself back up onto the bed awkwardly, knees bent, bumping his head against the ceiling as he repositioned himself next to Roxas. He rolled onto his stomach, dragged himself to the ledge and pointed up at the sky.

Roxas repositioned himself similarly and looked up, gasping a little in awe.

The sky glistened and glimmered amongst the swathes of clouds encircling a waning moon. Just below, in the distance, sat the cliffside-edge of the city and the dark shimmers of the Pacific Ocean. There were no skyscrapers to obstruct the view, leaving the gorgeous scenery to be seen uninhibited.

“This is pretty decent, but just imagine: we’re off the side of the road on an empty freeway—a couple of miles leaving Las Vegas—it’s midnight and _then_ ,” Axel sighed closing his eyes. “You look up.”

Roxas hummed closing his eyes in an attempt to picture what was in Axel’s memories but opened his eyes after a few moments. “I can’t imagine.”

“Yeah,” Axel laughed opening his eyes as well and looking back at Roxas with a soft grin. “You wanna see for yourself?”

“Definitely someday,” Roxas hummed, propping his chin up with his hands, gazing up at the sky.

“Well, what about today?”

“What! Today?”

“Yeah!—We can stop by your place, pack something for a couple of days, get some snacks and go!”

“Axel,” Roxas laughed, looking at his boyfriend. “I can’t—I have work tomorrow.”

“So? Just call ‘em off. Use up your sick days, babe.”

“And come in Wednesday with a sunburn and no flu?”

“We’ll keep you indoors and you can fake a cough for a couple of days, c’mon it’ll be fine!”

“Axel,” Roxas sighed and stretched out on the mattress. He looked back at the sky and hummed thoughtfully. “Can you take this thing to Baker Beach?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Axel exclaimed and pulled Roxas off the bed with him. They got out of the van and Axel busied himself grabbing jackets, shoes, and miscellaneous things off the passenger side seat to make room for Roxas. He went and dumped his armful of possessions in the van’s main interior, shut all the doors and then came back to the front. They got in, buckled up, and smiled brightly at each other. “Baker Beach or bust,” Axel shouted with excitement, plopping his android into the phone holder and quickly syncing it to the stereo to play _“Nights (I Wish I Could Be There)”_.

The drive to Baker Beach was filled with the muted electronica of HOME’s _Odyssey_ album, and comfortable silence was shared between them. Roxas couldn’t keep his eyes off his boyfriend, glancing at first, but then ultimately staring the entire time.

Axel shared a couple of looks, smiling gently, but went back to focusing on the road. After the fifth shared look, Axel took Roxas’s hand to stop him from fidgeting and picking at his nails. He lifted the hand to his mouth and kissed each knuckle tenderly before settling Roxas’s hand onto his lap.

After roughly ten songs and fifty kisses to Roxas’s knuckles, they were finally there at the beach parking lot. It was strangely empty, even if it was well into the early morning hours. Axel quickly busied himself with positioning the van, so the rear faced the beach. He expertly maneuvered the vehicle, and in no time at all, he cut the engine and they both got out. Axel stretched his gangly legs and sighed as he clicked the tension out of his knees and back, while Roxas slammed the door shut and looked up at the sky and out towards the ocean, sighing peacefully.

After unlocking the back, Axel bounded around and opened the van entrance. He gently pulled Roxas out of his daze and into the back of the van once more. 

Roxas plopped back down and slid to the back, tucking his arms under his chest and looking up at the night sky. “God,” he sighed happily, “I could get used to this.”

“Yeah?” Axel hummed, sidling in next to Roxas and swinging an arm around to bring the smaller man closer. He looked out over the dark, shining navy ocean, the palms dotting the beach, and the clear moon above with an appreciative noise, before looking back at Roxas and making a similar sound. “You know, we could do this every day.”

Roxas hummed dreamily but quickly realized what he agreed to, “Fuck, Axel—I- I... can’t.”

Axel shrugged, “Sure you can.” He moved his hand away from Roxas’s back to the side of his cheek, brushing his calloused fingers against the smooth skin. “You give your two weeks’ notice tomorrow, I’ll help you break your lease and ‘move-in’ to my printmaking studio in Portland. You take up the two empty cupboards to your right, and we do this every day, for as long as you’ll have me.” Axel grinned broadly, teeth flashing from the moonlight.

Roxas’s eyes widened as it was clear Axel wasn’t joking, he looked down at the black-linen pillow underneath him. “But Ax, my whole life is here.”

Axel hummed, removing his hand, and instead stretched both arms out and hung them off the edge of the bed, fingers tapping against the repositioned headboard. “So, what do you consider your ‘whole life?’”

“Well… my brother and his husband are here… all of my college buddies are here…. My job is here…”

“Well, from what it sounded like since we first met, you’ve always hated your job. Plus, you only ever see your buddies maybe three times a year?” Axel pondered meeting his eyes with Roxas who was busy burying his mouth into the pillow. “We can always come back y’know, parking is nothing in Concord,” he offered.

“Yeah but—God all of this sounds like too much, Ax,” Roxas sighed, looking back up at Axel with weakening resolve. “I’m stuck paying off my loans for the next five years at best.”

“I can help you with those!” Axel exclaimed, sitting up and pulling Roxas up with his hands. “Didn’t you say you went to school for painting? I know a couple of guys that can get you a thousand likes on Insta’ tomorrow. You can sell enough of ‘em to pay off your loans by the end of the year.”

Roxas laughed and slipped his hands away. “And you couldn’t tell me this five months ago?” he chided with a raised eyebrow.

“I didn’t know anyone then!” Axel got a punch to the shoulder from that to which he laughed and raised his hands, “I promise! Look you can check on Facebook right now, I just befriended Marluxia and Larxene two months ago.”

“Oh, the modern art assholes?” Roxas inquired.

“Yep, that’s them!”

Roxas laughed and shook his head, flopping back onto the bed. “I imagine I’d be painting a lot of flamingos for them.”

“They can be shitty flamingos—in crayon! Label every other piece with ‘Pink and Yellow Bastard’ and just number ‘em. Avant-garde as fuck.”

Roxas lazily shoved his hand at Axel’s chest and chuckled. “Sure, that’s _definitely_ a sound business plan.”

“Guaranteed by the man that owns fifteen on-and-off businesses. Babe, I know what I’m doing,” Axel boasted, and resumed lying on the bed, reaching back for Roxas’s hand and lacing their fingers together. “Have I convinced you enough?”

“Hmm, maybe…” Roxas smirked, looking at Axel with a playful glint in his eye.

“Hmm,” he hummed, rubbing his lips together. “What else can I do to convince you?”

Roxas hummed in mock thought, taking the hand woven with his and pulling Axel closer. “What are my offers?”

Axel smirked and quickly closed the gap with a searing kiss, inhaling sharply and parting after a couple of smaller pecks.

Roxas shivered in delight and chuckled as their lips separated with a smack. “I’m listening,” he husked, closing the gap between them again and sucking on Axel’s lower lip.

Axel rolled Roxas on top of himself, humming into the smaller man’s mouth. He ran his fingers up Roxas’s back into his hair, scratching his scalp while leisurely kissing him.

Roxas’s hands trailed up to Axel’s face, cupping the side to tilt it at an angle so he could dive in deeper. He ran a tongue over Axel’s bottom lip several times, nibbling and sucking on him with growing impatience. It wasn’t until he whined and pressed a finger under Axel’s chin in feeble attempts to get his boyfriend to open up that Axel complied with a breathy giggle. Roxas plunged his tongue in and immediately found that golden stud, flicking his tongue against and around it, sucking the stud and tongue into his mouth with a needy moan.

Axel followed Roxas’s guided motions, rubbing his tongue stud up against Roxas’s palate in just the way that made Roxas sharply inhale and gasp. He ran the piercing up until it softly touched the front of Roxas’s teeth and deftly ran along his gums. He broke away for air and went back to kissing and sucked on Roxas’s lower lip, running his piercing along the edge of Roxas’s pout.

Roxas opened his mouth for Axel and sucked the man’s tongue back in, playing with the stud underneath and moaning in delight as the metal grazed his inner cheeks and the underside of his tongue. His hands trailed away from Axel’s face and moved to pull the zipper of Axel’s jacket down, slipping underneath the silk-screened t-shirt up to Axel’s chest and flicking his fingers against the captive bead rings that made Axel inhale and hiss. Roxas sucked at Axel’s tongue stud, rolling it in between his teeth as he rubbed his thumbs against the sensitive pierced nipples under his fingertips. He felt an enthusiastic tug in his hair as he rubbed one hoop and tugged at the other.

Axel parted their mouths and breathily swore, malachite eyes glazing with desire. He pulled Roxas’s head down and fervently kissed him, running his piercing in the way that made Roxas moan into his mouth. Roxas’s fingers tweaked Axel’s piercings roughly each time Axel grazed his tongue piercing and roughly sucked Roxas’s tongue.

Soon they were both moaning into each other’s mouths and sharing labored breaths between kisses. Eventually, Roxas pulled away to take a proper breath in. “A-a-axel.”

Axel gulped and attempted to slow his breathing, sitting up and removing his jacket, flinging it to some part of the van.

Roxas kissed him again and pushed up Axel’s shirt, running his fingers over his boyfriend’s nipple rings again. He pulled the fabric off of Axel’s head, struggling to remove it.

“Ow, ow, f-fuck, babe!” Axel interjected, reaching up to free the fabric from his golden industrial ear piercing and laughing at Roxas’s impatience. “I should just take these out for you.”

“Or just go around shirtless.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Axel smarmily winked and clicked his tongue. “Frederick and Francesco would be _so sore_.”

“God don’t fucking call your nipples that,” Roxas laughed, throwing Axel’s shirt in his face.

“It’s only fair with how much attention you pay ‘em,” Axel chuckled, pulling the rumpled shirt off his face and throwing it in the same direction in which his jacket had been flung.

Roxas licked his lips, appreciating the golden glint of the jewelry in the moonlight. “It’s true, they’re only my second favorite piercings of yours.”

“Oh? What’s the first?”

Roxas traced his hands down Axel’s chest, tweaking the nipples again before brushing his fingers down his boyfriend’s taut torso, and over the natural black hairs trailing his abs. He smirked as he undid the fastenings of the black jeans, palming the hardening cock inside the boxers.

“Ah, but of course,” Axel chuckled reaching down to slip his jeans down further. “I should’ve known!”

Roxas grabbed the black jeans and shucked them down Axel’s skinny legs to his ankles. He then gently pushed the fabric of the boxers, slowing down enough to prevent them from tugging and only pausing when the band hit Axel’s mid-thigh. His breath caught in his throat, admiring the four gold studs decorating the head of his boyfriend’s erection.

Axel smirked and wrapped a hand around his cock, jostling the twin apadravyas and hissing in delight. “I love how worked up you get over my piercings,” he languidly pumped himself with an exaggerated moan. “Tell me how you want it.”

“I wanna suck your cock so bad,” Roxas moaned, swatting Axel’s grip away to replace it with his own. He thumbed the piercings, sliding the barbells up and down, hearing Axel groan as he fiddled with them. He bowed down, taking the swollen head of the cock in his mouth and noisily sucked at the crown and barbells.

Axel let out a garbled moan and a chuckle, his hips shaking from restrained desire. “Fuck, God—straight to the point.” He closed his eyes, reaching down to grasp a fistful of Roxas’s hair.

Roxas moaned, opening his eyes to watch Axel's expression while he slid his mouth over the skin of the engorged length. He loved the look on Axel’s face as he wrapped his lips around the head and tongued the metal. He closed his eyes again and was set to enjoy every second of this. 

Roxas languidly ran his tongue along the frenulum, over the studs, down the shaft, along the pulsing vein, and back up to the piercings. Then, he took one of the beads between his teeth and tugged at it gently, before turning his attention to the other bead and mirroring his ministrations there. He kept flicking and wiggling his tongue against the piercing until he heard a frustrated pent up moan from Axel.

“G-god, Rox. Please,” he groaned, earning his apadravyas another tug and flick.

Roxas chuckled before running his lips down and up the shaft, sucking and licking the outside before encircling his mouth around the head and sucking down until the twin studs brushed the back of his throat. He choked and pulled off a little while his mouth and eyes watered as he looked back up at Axel. He repeated the motions more fervently, sliding his mouth up and down the length and making rough noises each time the tip hit the back of his throat, until his own saliva dripped down along Axel’s erection. He then used the accumulated spit to coat the rest of the length he couldn’t deepthroat and pumped the shaft along with his sucks several times, until Axel cried out and tugged at his hair.

“F-fuck, babe. M’ gonna cum if you keep doing that,” Axel panted, giving a gentler tug at Roxas’s hair.

Roxas slipped his mouth off and slowly stroked the head, thumbing the piercings as he caught his breath. “What else do you have in mind?”

Axel canted his hips with Roxas’s strokes and huffed, swallowing and gazing at Roxas with intense desire. Once his breath evened out, in a spurt of energy, he sat up and pinned Roxas to the mattress, diving down to kiss him again, nipping and sucking his lip. “I wanna make you cum,” he growled, swiftly pulling Roxas’s clothes off. “Facing that view.”

“Fuck yes,” Roxas groaned in between kisses, assisting Axel in getting himself as naked as the other man while toeing his shoes off. “Lube?”

Axel kicked his neon pink Chuck Taylors, black jeans, and underwear off of his lower extremities to the foot of the bed and blindly groped along the cabinets lining the side of the bed until he pried one open. He separated from the kiss to dig underneath a pile of sex toys and found the bottle, handing it to Roxas with a chuckle.

Roxas looked over at the cabinet with a gasp. “Are those all _yours_?”

Axel smirked, “Yeah, you wanna try one out?”

“N-no not now it’s just— _why_? Why do you have so _many?_ ”

Axel’s expression softened, lightly chuckling before giving Roxas a sweet kiss. “There’s not a night that passes where thinking about you doesn’t drive me crazy,” he kissed him again more passionately. “When I think about all the nights where you fuck me like I’m the last man on earth, fingers just don’t _do you_ any justice.”

Roxas’s face flushed at that thought. He craned his head up to kiss Axel with the same intensity. “Do you still wanna fuck me?”

“ _God,_ yes,” Axel kissed him, sucking Roxas’s lower lip and nipping it. “Tell me where you want me.”

“Behind me, I wanna see the view too.”

Axel quickly maneuvered their bodies to face the ocean, the prickly breeze leaving goosebumps against their bare skin. He squeezed a sizeable amount of lube into his hand and slowly eased one finger inside and coated Roxas from within. Axel wrapped his free hand around Roxas’s erection and languidly pumped him as he slowly probed and twisted his finger deeper into Roxas. Eventually, Roxas relaxed and Axel inserted another finger and then another, stretching him with ease. He slowly thrust his fingers in and out and stroked Roxas’s erection until Roxas cried impatiently and pushed back against Axel’s digits. Then, in one fluid motion, Axel lubed his erection and replaced the fingers with his cock, slowly thrusting forward, eliciting a mutually satisfied moan from both of them.

Roxas clenched his eyes, canting his hips back with every thrust forward from his boyfriend. He savored the fullness Axel’s cock delivered and shivered from all the friction the apadravyas gave him, as the piercings brushed along all of his nerves in the way that made him cry out Axel’s name. Frantically, his ass met Axel’s jutting hip bones, causing him to rut and release animal-like sounds from his throat into the calm night air and out into the vast empty ocean beyond. His primal sounds fueled Axel on, causing him to ram into Roxas harder and faster. Roxas’s mouth fell open in ecstasy and he opened his eyes to try and appreciate the view, because of the effort that had gone into driving all this way to see it. But when Axel adjusted his hips, Roxas shouted and his eyes rolled back and shut tight. Every thrust forward hit his prostate, making Roxas’s knees buckle, causing him to see nothing but stars.

It didn’t take long until Roxas felt Axel’s hand wrap around his erection. Kisses and sucks were deposited along his neck and up to his ear. He felt the hot breath against the shell of his ear until he heard the moan, “F-fuck Rox, m’ close.” Roxas squeezed his eyes shut, gripping the bed and thrusting his hips into Axel’s wrapped hand and back against Axel’s hard cock. With several brushes against his prostate, he bucked his hips and cried out into the night as he shook with his release. He rode out the waves of pleasure until he felt Axel’s teeth bite into the skin between his shoulder blades, heard the guttural groan, and felt the cum spilling inside himself. 

Axel thrust his hips forward a couple of times before collapsing on top of Roxas where they shared labored breaths. He left idle kisses around the harsh bite mark. “Sorry, babe,” he mumbled against the skin.

Roxas panted in harsh gasps and he rolled over enough to meet Axel’s kisses with a smile. “S’ok.” 

The ocean tides quickly drowned out the sounds of shared kisses and soft murmurs of their afterglow. They eventually fell asleep under the covers, limbs entangled around each other.

* * *

Roxas was the first to wake, propping himself up on his elbows under the covers and resting his chin against his knuckles. The sun had just started to rise above the shimmering ocean, creating a mirrored burst along the horizon. Rays peaked in between thick, fluffy clouds and danced along the glistening surface of the water. Roxas sighed peacefully, looking at the view until a loud snore from his boyfriend broke the silence. Roxas looked down at Axel, who started to stir, groping around the bed until his arms encircled Roxas’s lower torso and pulled him in close. Roxas yelped and laughed, poking at Axel’s chest, “Axel, wake up. Y’er missing the sunrise.”

His boyfriend groaned but rubbed at his eyes, eyeliner smudged beyond repair, blinking up at Roxas with a sleepy grin. “Hey, babe,” he hummed, dragging his body up and kissing Roxas’s cheek. He looked out across the ocean and gave a slow whistle, propping up his chin with folded arms and a pillow.

They both stared out in silence until the sun rose up completely, setting the sky awash with brilliant warm hues. 

Eventually, Roxas looked back over at Axel, who had long since stopped appreciating the scenic ocean view and instead was directing an unwavering soft stare towards Roxas. Roxas looked in the direction of where Axel was staring, which earned a snort from Axel and another tug back down against the sheets like before. Roxas blushed and dreamily smiled, looking back at his boyfriend and leaned forward to pepper his face with lazy kisses.

Axel exaggerated a pout, sticking his lips out in comical suggestion which earned a snort from Roxas.

“Ew, not with _your_ morning breath,” Roxas laughed and shoved Axel.

“Fine, have it your way,” Axel grumbled, scooting forward and drawing the van door in with the tips of his fingers. “Morning breath adds _flavor_ to the kisses though.”

“If by _flavor,_ you mean beer and Funyun-breath? No thanks.”

“You were fine with it yesterday,” Axel pointed out with a snicker, bringing in the next door.

“Not when it’s marinating in your gross-ass mouth for five hours.”

Axel crawled out of bed, picking up his boxer briefs discarded on the ground, and slipped them on. He found Roxas’s pair and handed them off. “You wanna freshen up before me?”

“Yeah.”

Eventually, after Axel showed Roxas how to turn the water on and off in the shower room and Roxas nabbed a toothbrush from Axel’s stash, the both of them were cleaned off and had brushed their teeth. Axel slipped into some clean clothes and Roxas dressed in the same ones from last night. They both sat outside on a park bench, arms wrapped around each other, sharing the warmth between them, as well as idle kisses, while the ocean breeze blew. Eventually, they parted and sat next to each other, Roxas’s head resting against Axel’s side.

“I wish we could sit here like this all day,” Roxas mused out loud, watching the sparse clusters of early morning beachgoers make camp in the sand.

“It’s up to you,” Axel ran his hand down Roxas’s back idly.

Roxas hummed but paused in thought, “It’s up to my job.”

“Which you could just dump in two-weeks?”

“Axel,” Roxas huffed. He chewed on the bottom of his lip and closed his eyes. A wistful, “Maybe,” left his mouth.

Axel groaned and smacked the bench, “Goddammit!”

Roxas jumped and looked over at his boyfriend; Axel’s body was stiff, and his jaw clenched. “What’s wrong?” Roxas asked.

Axel glanced over at him and back to the ocean a couple of times before he let out a breath. “I just… I don’t get what’s holding you back.”

“I _told_ you,” Roxas started, shifting his body away from Axel to face him front on. “I have a job, I have family, and friends… I can’t just _drop_ everything and go like _you_ can _._ ”

Axel bristled, a deep-set scowl flashing onto his face and his eyes darted back with venom. “ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Axel,” Roxas clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I like you and everything—but you’re always leaving me here after, at most, _five days_. Whatever fucking jobs you do—that’s always more important to you than me. And I get it, I’m saying _maybe_ over money too.” 

Axel bared his teeth, “Really? That’s all you fucking think of me?”

“Well, you don’t give me a reason to think otherwise.”

“ _Don’t give you a reason_? Did you fucking hit your head on something the last few days? Or does me constantly dropping what I’m doing to see you— _no matter what—_ mean _nothing_ to you?”

Roxas’s expression at that point mirrored Axel’s, his frown setting in deeper. “Do you _honestly_ think that’s any way for me to live, Ax? I have to call you to talk to you, I have to wait days for you to answer my texts— _Fuck!_ I didn’t even know you lived in a fucking van until yesterday!” Roxas shook his head and laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. “I barely know _shit_ about you, Axel—Did you fucking know I thought you were a _serial killer_ from how you just tell me shit like—” Roxas swallowed and mock-deepened his voice, “‘ _Oh! I was out, busy touring with my buddies from this band,_ ’ but I couldn’t even _find_ anything about that band. Or-or Instagram!” Roxas clapped his hands and pointed at Axel and laughed again. “I can’t even find you on that _either_. Of course, you’d be the type to not credit your photographs—because it was a paid gig? God… Who the _fuck_ doesn’t credit their own shit—”

“And what’s _your point_?” Axel interrupted with clenched teeth.

“ _The point?_ ” Roxas shrieked, his hands quickly forming fists and hitting the bench seat. “You’re _never_ here—Or when you _are_ here… You’re just fucking gone the next day!” He closed his eyes and swallowed before continuing, “You wanna know _why_ I always think I’m dreaming when I’m with you, Axel? It’s because you’re not fucking real _—_ like Sora, or Naminé, or Hayner. They’re _here_ , you _aren’t_! _Why_ don’t you get this?” Roxas implored, his voice reaching a higher pitch than before. 

“So, _this_ is what the ‘ _not real’_ bullshit was all about?” Axel yelled and sprung up from the bench to face Roxas. His face contorted in disgust as his whole body shook, his blood boiling and flaring up his skin. “What… I’m just some wet dream for your spank bank?” Axel snapped. With sudden and great indifference, he continued, “Fine, fuck it, I won’t come back next time. It won’t matter to you either way...”

Both of them huffed, averting their gaze from each other, Roxas clenched his fists, tugging at the fabric of his shirt, which did nothing to keep him warm. “Drop me off at work, we’re done here.”

“Take a fucking uber, asshole,” Axel snapped with derision while digging around his jacket. He brought out a lighter and a pack of Marlboros, sticking the cigarette in between his teeth. 

Roxas clenched his jaw, snapping his phone out of his jacket pocket and tried turning it on—the dead battery signal flickering on the screen. “Can’t… unless you have a lightning cable shoved up your ass...”

Axel flicked his lighter and peered over at Roxas’s phone screen before it shut off. “Jesus Fucking Christ...” He slipped the items back into his jacket and stomped to the van, clearing out the passenger side haphazardly before sliding his ass over to the driver’s side, pointedly looking over at Roxas with a scowl.

Roxas followed suit, wearing the same sour expression he had when he met Axel at the bar the first time. He stomped over, got in and slammed the door shut so forcefully it made the entire vehicle shake. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared up at Axel.

Axel averted his gaze, and turned on the vehicle, turning off the pleasant instrumentals that played with the syncing of his Bluetooth’s phone and instead drove the entire time in silence. 

When Roxas was dropped off at work they parted with a shared glare and Axel’s screeching tires as he raced off. Roxas thrust his middle finger out after the asshole and stomped into his work, collapsing at his cubicle and feeling too despondent to make the effort of getting through his email tasks. As he cooled off, he kept on thinking about the argument he had with Axel. They had never fought like this before. It had always been petty stuff revolving around musical tastes or weird food combinations. He replayed the events in his head over and over again, wondering what, out of everything he said, could have or would have made the outcome any different.

He continued to think about the argument, over every day he didn’t get a call or a text from Axel, and every day that Axel didn’t show up at his doorstep. Roxas sometimes would linger after work, staring outside, waiting to see if Axel would jog up to the windows and drag him out to a bar. After about two weeks of no sign of Axel, Roxas really thought that they had broken up. 

Roxas considered his options then. Could he move on without ever hearing Axel’s infectious laugh or never seeing _that look_ Axel gives him whenever Roxas just talked about his day? Would he be truly happy continuing his dull, monotonous existence without ever seeing Axel’s beaming face to pull him out of his misery? He wondered what it would take to get Axel to come back. If his requests of Roxas to stay with Axel were all that unreasonable? Unfortunately, he still couldn’t commit to dropping everything in his life at that point in favor of long-term plans of living in a van with Axel—no matter how _nice_ the van or the man were—But the curiosity to drop everything for a week and do something fun slowly became more and more appealing to him. 

These thoughts kept him awake at night, so on one of these _very_ sleepless nights he brought out his phone and tried to type out a message. It centered around needing to try out Axel’s lifestyle before he could agree to something extreme. He wrote several iterations of the message but each time he thought it was too wordy or not good enough. He wanted to tell Axel all of this in person… if Axel would ever come back into town again. So, he texted him, “We left things at a bad spot and I wanna talk. I miss you.” He left it at that. Several days had gone by and there was no indication that Axel was going to respond, and with Axel _not_ using iMessages, he couldn’t even tell if Axel had read it. 

It had been over two weeks since he had sent the message and Roxas had resolved to binge on everything that comforted him as if he were still in middle school. He had an extra-large supreme deluxe pizza, a box of sea salt ice cream in the freezer, and neon-green bottles of toxic-waste disguised as soda in the fridge. He was in the middle of a Pixar movie marathon, Finding Nemo on his television screen, when his front doorbell rang unexpectedly. Roxas didn’t bother pausing the movie, hauling himself up and to the door. 

He looked through the peephole and paused at what he saw; a familiar tall red-headed figure fidgeting and glancing away from directly looking back at him stood, with his hands buried in his pockets. Roxas’s heart soared and beat an erratic tempo. He flung the door open, looking up at Axel with a ghastly expression of mixed emotions, while Axel looked back at him with an expression that shifted back and forth between worry and relief.

They both stared in silence, Roxas clearing his throat and wordlessly stepping aside for Axel to enter his apartment, shutting the door once Axel had come in and started pulling off his shoes. “So…” Roxas started.

“So…” Axel answered. He looked around Roxas’s unkempt apartment and frowned. His expression grew graver as he saw the half-eaten pizza on the coffee table with Nemo in the background. “Damn,” he cursed under his breath.

“Y-yeah,” Roxas picked up the remote and shut it off. “You want anything? Pizza, soda—Ice cream?”

“Maybe later…” Axel chewed on his lower lip, mulling over his words. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah?” Roxas exclaimed, his eyes widening and brightening with hope.

Axel smiled with a short laugh, “Yeah…”

They both stood in silence, mirroring each other’s warm smiles and softening gazes. 

The butterflies in Roxas’s stomach flurried and encircled his heart which made his face flare up.

“Do you want me to go first? Or do you?” Axel asked, sitting down at the living room couch.

“You go ahead.”

Axel exhaled, leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes. “Roxas, I—I love you.”

As Roxas heard that, his heart sang, and butterflies filled his stomach as tears quickly formed in his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah—and… I get it. You want a stable boyfriend with a stable house, and stable family, and friends. I’m—nothing like that though. But I want to be because—going a day without you fucking sucks,” Axel exhaled and looked over at Roxas, his bright malachite eyes shimmered with tears. “I wanna sell my van, get a real job, and live with you here. Because that’s what _you_ want. And if that’s the only way I can have you, then so fucking be it.”

Roxas choked on a laugh, his smile cracking despite tears running down his face. “Axel, I love you too. I love everything about you—how you have a million jobs and thousands of friends—how you’ve been everywhere—and _especially_ that you live in a van. I never want to change that about you.” Roxas wiped his face and laughed some more. “I was gonna tell you that—I want to go on that trip with you to Nevada, just the two of us. I wanna see the sunset in the middle of the desert with you and kiss you under the stars.”

Axel’s eyes widened, and his face cracked into a dazzling and brilliant smile that just made Roxas’s heart sing even louder. He walked over and scooped Axel up in his arms. They kissed each other with such tenderness and warmth that it felt like they both were being careful not to break the other. 

“God—so does this mean?”

“Actually—no. I just—want to test this all out,” Roxas laughed and kissed Axel again. “If these two weeks go well…” he looked up at Axel and shrugged with a soft grin. “I suppose anything is possible.”

Axel’s grin didn’t falter from that answer, instead, he kissed the breath out of Roxas and held him close. That was just enough for Roxas to be aglow with relief.

* * *

Roxas groaned and woke up in bed to a loud clang inside the van. He stirred and lifted his head, feeling the muggy wet air inside the van, as if the interiors had been steam-fumigated cleaned. He rolled out of bed, found and pulled on his discarded boxers, and padded up to the front of the van, wrapping his arms around his lanky boyfriend. 

Roxas’s touch caused Axel to jump but look over, smiling sheepishly back at him. “Sorry babe, I dropped the bowl when trying to flip ‘em.” Axel bent down and kissed Roxas on his forehead.

Roxas grumbled and buried his face into Axel’s unclothed back. “A bowl for—” Roxas unburied his face to inspect Axel’s cooking. “Eggs over easy?” Roxas looked up at Axel with a scrunched nose.

Axel shrugged, “Told ya this would happen.”

Roxas yawned and shook his head, reaching up to kiss Axel’s cheek before parting from his boyfriend to slip on a pair of flip-flops so he could walk outside. Immediately, he was hit with intense, dry, acrid air, and saw a haze of light caused by the dusky sunrise floating up across the mesas that crowded the horizon. 

Roxas, rounding over to the back of the van, opened up both doors and dropped the headboard into the slot Axel had built for it. Roxas climbed up onto the bed, shucked off his flip-flops and tossed them back into the van’s interior, turning back to the view of the sun casting patterns and shadows along the dusty coral rock.

After a few moments, Axel joined him in gazing at the same view, handing a plate to Roxas while setting his own on his lap. They both ate in silence, the small clattering of utensils filling up the noise between them.

After Roxas swallowed his breakfast down, he set his plate aside and looked over at Axel, “So how close are we?”

Axel looked over and grinned, gesturing with his fork toward the opposite side of the road, where a bright forest green sign sat, with an arrow facing back toward the vehicle, bright white letters exclaiming _50 mi to Las Vegas._ “I’d say pretty close as long as we turn this van around.”

Roxas beamed up at him, his grin so wide, it would have hurt his face had it been any bigger. “Can we go?”

Axel smiled and leaned forward, kissing him slowly and softly. “Anything for you, babe.”

**Author's Note:**

> [_Odyssey_ by HOME and _"Nights (I Wish I Could Be There)"_](https://midwestcollective.bandcamp.com/album/odyssey)
> 
>  
> 
> When I first published this, I had done so before I got a grade and feedback from my professor. I thought I'd update this with what he wrote me for y'all to get tickled by it too.
>
>> While I’m not familiar with this fanfic, I was able to follow it pretty well. I think there are probably some references—like the sea salt ice cream and maybe Pixar movies—that probably belong to this fanfic (I did a very brief internet search on it).
>> 
>> It was easy to follow, though, because the momentum is so clear. When you have good momentum, readers usually have the patience to get through minor stuff they might not know, or that might be clear up later.
>> 
>> The first momentum source I would call “Axel-as-mystery”—a "who is this person?” Momentum on Roxas’s part.
>> 
>> The second momentum device Is the tension between them about Roxas moving away from everything he knows for Axel—a tension that leads to a hiatus in the relationship.
>> 
>> I think there’s another momentum change just starting to happen at the end of this, which is a new question, something like: will their time in the van lead to a longer term relationship, or will it get to hard and they’ll end it? (I’d expect it lots of pleasurable bumps in the road.)
>> 
>> Lots of momentum here, is my main point.
>> 
>> As for your question: I think this could be flushed out. For one, there is more story to go—a new question has been posed.
>> 
>> For two, I think you could flush out some of the earlier scenes when they first get together. Much of this story is in scene, which is great. However, there is a section of summary early in the story when they are first getting to know each other—before the first van scene (which is full of cool description, by the way). I would go back to that stretch of summary and add some scenes in. So much time passes that you need some summary there, but a few scenes will help.
>> 
>> I hope that helps a little, and I hope you enjoyed writing this—it reads as if you did!
> 
> Also when I originally published this, I wasn't sure if it would be a good enough idea to make into a multichapter-ed story, but after a bunch of feedback from people that have read it on and off of Ao3, I can gladly say it's in the works 😉.


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